Follow the Directions

A couple of weeks ago, we were driving Eli to preschool, when he said, "Look at that truck behind us."  But, the truck was in front of us.  He did the same thing a few of days later, saying we were in front of a vehicle that we were really behind.  To be honest, I was quite shocked at this.  Once might have been a simple mistake, but TWICE, means it's time for a game to practice directional words.

I wrote directional words on notecards (we added JUMP later in our game...the scribbled card up in the right corner, colored by Abby, was a FREE PLAY card).

We moved this blue table into our living room and then I held all of the cards.  The kids would pick a card and then stand where it told them to stand.  If they drew BEHIND, the would stand behind the table.  Drawing BESIDE meant that they had to stand beside the table.  You get the idea.  Sadly, I don't have any pictures of the kids actually playing our game.  I always like to do whatever we are doing for a bit before I start taking pictures.  So, we were happily playing away and the kids were loving it.  Big smiles were plastered to their faces as they ran AROUND the table and layed UNDER it.  We had a lot of fun, until the "injuries" began.  I quote the word injuries because they were kind of injuries that only extremly overtired children incur.  After three "injuries" of unknown origin, Eli was no longer into playing our game, hence, no pictures.  

Playing this game made me realize, again, the power of using common things in different ways.  We don't usually have our blue table in the living room and we usually don't get to stand on top of it and then jump off.  Using the same things in unusual ways makes instant fun! 

After half of my game players were incapacitated and we were done playing, I did think of some fun ways to expand this game.  You could make two sets of cards, a set of body parts and a set of directional words.  Then draw a card from each set and then do what it says...HAND ON TOP of the table, FOOT UNDER the table, HEAD IN FRONT of the table.  I guess that is basically Twister.

Interestingly, Eli never confused IN FRONT and BEHIND while we were playing our game.  Hmmmm.  

A mystery...kind of like his "injuries."